MORE NEW CENTRES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 100, 17 July 1946, Page 3

MORE NEW CENTRES

TRADE TRAINING FOR EXSERVICEMEN With the opening early this month of a new carpentry trade training centre at Masterton, the number of rehabilitation carpentry centres will be brought to 22, says a statement from the Rehabilitation Department. These are located from Northland to Invercargill and are training hundreds of ex-servicemen to take their place in the building industry. Further cai-pentry centres which it is expected will be opened soon will be at Whangarei and Oamaru, and will bring the total to 24. There are besides five centres for the teaching of painting, paper hanging and glazing, two being at Auckland, one at Wellington, one at Christchurch and one at Dunedin. The Dunedin centre, which opened in May, is installed in a Quanset hut which was used by United States forces in the Pacific.

A further four painting centres are to be opened in the near future. There will be a second centre each at Christchurch and Wellington, and adso centres at Hamilton and Palmerston North. There is also a proposal to establish a second painting centre Dunedin. There are three centres each for the teaching of bricklaying and plastering respectively, these being at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Dunedin is next on the list for centres in both these trades, while later in the year it is intended to commence a joinery centre in Wellington. The Masterton training school, which is being established in a large recreation hut in Solway Park, will be what is known as a half-centre. It will take 12 trainees every four months. The training period is two years and wages commence at £5 15s a week gross, rising to journeymen’s rates at the end of the first year. During the first four months, trainees at carpentry centres are taught the fundamental principles and theory of building construction, care and maintenance of tools and equipment, together with practical work in joinery. The whole of 'the remaining 20 months are occupied in actual construction work, giving practical experience in all phases of house-building. At the end of May there were 1656 ex-servicemen undergoing instruction at the rehabilitatio trade training centres, while 894 had actually complete dtheir training. Only 294 had withdrawn their applications or for health or other reasons had discontinued training once having commenced.